“You’ll have to get a pole or a rope,” she told him quietly.

Beaudry found the dead trunk of a young sapling and drew the girl up hand over hand.  On the brink she stumbled and he caught her in his arms to save her from falling back into the prospect hole.

For a moment she lay close to him, heart beating against heart.  Then, with a little sobbing sigh, she relaxed and began to weep.  Her tears tugged at his sympathy, but none the less the pulses pounded in his veins.  He held her tight, with a kind of savage tenderness, while his body throbbed with the joy of her.  She had come to him with the same sure instinct that brings a child to its mother’s arms.  All her pride and disdain and suspicion had melted like summer mists in her need of the love and comfort he could give her.

“It’s all right now.  You’re safe.  Nothing can hurt you,” he promised.

“I know, but you don’t know—­what—­what—­” She broke off, shuddering.

Still with his arm about her, he led Beulah to his horse.  Here he made her sit down while he gave her water and food.  Bit by bit she told him the story of her experience.  He suffered poignantly with her, but he could not be grateful enough that the finger-tip of destiny had pointed him to her prison.  He thanked his rather vague gods that it had been his footsteps rather than those of another man that had wandered here to save her.

What surprised and wholly delighted him was the feminine quality of her.  He had thought of her before as a wild young creature full of pride and scorn and anger, but with a fine barbaric loyalty that might yet redeem her from her faults.  He had never met a young woman so hard, so self-reliant.  She had asked no odds because of her sex.  Now all this harshness had melted.  No strange child could have been more shy and gentle.  She had put herself into his hands and seemed to trust him utterly.  His casual opinions were accepted by her as if they had been judgments of Solomon.

Roy spread his blankets and put the saddle-bags down for a pillow.

“We’re not going to stay here to-night, are we?” she asked, surprised.

He smiled.  “No, you’re going to lie down and sleep for an hour.  When you wake, supper will be ready.  You’re all in now, but with a little rest you will be fit to travel.”

“You won’t go away while I sleep,” she said.

“Do you think it likely?  No, you can’t get rid of me that easy.  I’m a regular adhesive plaster for sticking.”

“I don’t want to get rid of you,” she answered naively.  “I’d be afraid without you.  Will you promise to stay close all the time I sleep?”

“Yes.”

“I know I won’t sleep, but if you want me to try—­”

“I do.”

She snuggled down into the blankets and was asleep in five minutes.

Beaudry watched her with hungry eyes.  What was the use of denying to himself that he loved her?  If he had not known it before, the past half-hour had made it clear to him.  With those wan shadows below her long eye-lashes and that charming manner of shy dependence upon him, she was infinitely more attractive to him than she had ever been before.